The Montreal Institute for the Deaf and Mute was a

boarding school A boarding school is a school where pupils live within premises while being given formal instruction. The word "boarding" is used in the sense of "room and board", i.e. lodging and meals. As they have existed for many centuries, and now exten ...

operated by the Clerics of St Viateur between 1848 and 1983 in

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-most populous city in Canada and List of towns in Quebec, most populous city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian ...

, Quebec.

History

The Montreal Institute for the Deaf was founded as ''L'Institute Catholique des Sourds-Muets'' (The Catholic School for Deaf Boys) in 1848 in Faubourg Quebec, a neighbourhood in the northeastern corner of Montreal. In 1850, the Institute moved to the

Mile End Mile End is a district of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets in the East End of London, England, east-northeast of Charing Cross. Situated on the London-to-Colchester road, it was one of the earliest suburbs of London. It became part of the m ...

area, at the corner of Boulevard St-Joseph and Rue Saint Dominique in Montreal. By 1887, workshops for teaching the trades such as bookbinding, shoemaking and printing had been built within the school. In the 1921, the Institute moved to a new building at 7400 Boulevard Saint-Laurent in Montreal. The building is now listed as a heritage building by the City of Montreal. In 1983, the Institute ceased teaching at the 7400 Boulevard Saint-Laurent location. The following year, the ''Institute Catholique des Sourds-Muets'' changed its name to ''L'Institut Raymond-Dewar '' (English:''The Raymond Dewar Institute'').

Sexual abuse settlement

In 2012, 60 former students of the Institute filed a class action suit claiming they were sexually abused by priests in the school. The initial class action was joined by other former students, bringing the total number of plaintiffs claiming abuse to 150 students with claims of abuse ranging between 1942 and 1982. The claims by former students were not legally contested by the Clerics of St Viateur. This led to a settlement in 2016 of $30 million from the Clerics of St Viateur and ''The Raymond Dewar Institute''. The settlement was the largest settlement ever awarded for a sexual abuse case in Quebec history. The settlement, authorized in the

Superior Court of Quebec The Superior Court of Quebec (french: Cour supérieure du Québec) is a superior trial court in the Province of Quebec, in Canada. It consists of 157 judges who are appointed by the federal government. Appeals from this court are taken to the Qu ...

, provided for a payment of $20 million from the Canadian Clerics of St. Viateur, and $10 million from ''The Raymond Dewar Institute'', the renamed version of the Institute adopted in 1984.

References

{{coord, 45.53550, N, 73.62154, W, display=title History of Montreal Schools in Montreal Schools for the deaf in Canada

History

Sexual abuse settlement

See also

References